


Five Goodbyes

by Bohemienne



Series: Ten Steps [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Porn, Bathroom Sex, Breathplay, Dirty Talk, Explicit Sexual Content, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Howling Commandos smut, Light Masochism, Light Sadism, M/M, Masochism, Masochist Bucky Barnes, Oral Sex, Period-Typical Homophobia, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Polyamory, Porn with Feelings, World War II, World War II Stucky, awkward wartime polyamory, post-serum Bucky, post-serum Steve, radio sex, the infamous tearful storage closet blowjob fic, unless you consider crying to be plot, vintage stucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:17:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7773709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bohemienne/pseuds/Bohemienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky gets lost sometimes when he doesn’t have a rifle in his hand; gets lost without orders to follow, missions to complete. And then, when he’s around Steve, he loses himself a little more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NurseDarry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NurseDarry/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Пять прощаний](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12099762) by [fandom_EvanstanStarbucks_2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandom_EvanstanStarbucks_2017/pseuds/fandom_EvanstanStarbucks_2017)



> aka, Five Times I Tried to Write Fluffy Howlie Smut and It Ended in Tears and Blowjobs.
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ [Bohemienne](http://starandshield.tumblr.com)

**I.**

If the hours before a mission are silent as snow, well, the Howling Commandos more than make up for it the night after.

Morita snatches the bottle of grain alcohol out of Jones’s hand. It sloshes against the glass, threatening to spill, the stink of it burning everyone’s nostrils. “Wait, wait, wait. I got one, boys.”

They’re sitting around a campfire, no longer worried about being spotted; there isn’t a Hydra soldier in thirty miles who isn’t sporting a uniform stained with red. It’s cold, but nothing a fire and a few shots of schnapps can’t ward off. Bucky barely feels it, anyway. He sat down a little too close to Steve in their ring, and he knows he should move over, but he doesn’t want to draw attention to it and anyway the warmth radiating off of Steve, all that supersoldier juice pumping through his too-big heart, it’s enough to thaw any frost.

God, it feels good just to be close to Steve’s warmth again. He tells himself that it can be enough. So he holds his tin cup of schnapps aloft and waits for Morita’s decree.

“Never have I ever . . .” Morita looks around the Commandos, his grin deadly in the firelight. “Made time with a dame while she’s on the rag.”

Jones and Dugan both groan; Falsworth just shakes his head, then tosses back a drink. “The things we do for love, am I right, lads?” Dernier takes a swig as well and shrugs, looking perfectly pleased.

“All right, I think I got one—” Bucky starts, but then catches sight of Steve, tipping his cup to his lips.

Because Steve has.

“Cap,” Jones gasps, feigning astonishment. “You sly devil.”

Steve swallows, mouth puckering. “Yeah, well. Like Monty said.” He turns to Bucky, nudging at his shoulder, but Bucky’s still staring. He doesn’t fight back, just lets Steve shove at him, watches the way Steve’s grin dies out from the corner of his eye.

The booze he’s already drank burns right out of him, leaving behind an empty ache.

Steve sets his empty cup down. “I think I’m done for the night, gentlemen. We’ve got a long hike back to the extraction point tomorrow.”

“Says the man who can outrun a Jeep,” Morita mutters.

“And who doesn’t even get drunk, much less hungover,” Jones says.

Steve stands up. “Be that as it may. Excellent work today.” He fires off a salute. “Try not to start any more fistfights, yeah?”

“Well, if the captain insists,” Falsworth says.

Bucky turns to Steve, but he’s already crawling inside the pup tent where he and Bucky stashed their gear.

“Sarge?” Morita asks, waving the bottle in the air. “You said you wanted to go next?”

Bucky blinks and forces himself back to the campfire. He gets lost sometimes when he doesn’t have a rifle in his hand; gets lost without orders to follow, missions to complete. And then, when he’s around Steve, he loses himself a little more.

Steve hadn’t told him. Hadn’t told him a goddamn thing.

“Yeah . . . no. I forgot what I was gonna say.”

“I’ve got one,” Jones says, and snatches the bottle back from Morita. Bucky struggles to stay with them, focus on their words. “Never have I ever wanked it with another guy around.”

Dugan rolls his eyes. “Really? You’re in the army, pal. You’re tellin’ me you’ve never jerked your chain in the barracks—”

Jones laughs. “That’s not how I mean it, and you know it.”

“Why don’t you tell me, then, sweetheart?” Dugan bats his eyes at Jones, to big laughs out of Falsworth and Morita. Bucky rotates his tin cup in his hand and waits for someone else to bite.

Once again, Dernier shrugs and takes a swig.

“The fuckin’ Frenchman. Of course,” Dugan says.

Morita shakes his head. “I dunno how this game doesn’t kill him outright.”

He could set his cup down. Not like they’d ever know. But now that Dernier’s declared himself, it wouldn’t be sporting.

And if he’s honest with himself, he’s a little bit on edge still and a whole lot frustrated and doesn’t mind knocking Steve’s halo askew. It’s not petty, he tells himself. Steve’s gonna air his laundry about what he and Carter do behind closed doors, gonna rub it in everyone’s face, then so can he.

Bucky takes a quick sip. Instantly the rest of the guys are howling, crying for the dirt. “Yeah, well, you know how it is. You’re a horny-ass teenager, you and your buddy find your pop’s dirty picture stash, it’s not like you’re gonna wait your turn.”

Morita swirls his finger in the air. “Horny teenager . . . this wouldn’t be our dear star-spangled golden boy, now would it?”

Bucky affects a wry smile—he knows how to play this role so well, it was like tying his shoes—and takes another drink. Doesn’t matter that inside, he feels as raw and toxic as the booze.

The rest of the Commandos fall into a laughing fit again. Bucky drains his cup, then stands it upside down in the dirt. “All right, boys. I’m hitting the hay.”

“You and Cap wanna borrow a girlie mag?” Dugan asks, setting off another round of laughs.

Bucky points his finger at him as he backs away. “Funny. You’re hilarious. Dernier, don’t let these homebodies kill you, all right?”

Dernier flicks two fingers to his forehead in a salute, then Bucky ducks into the tent he shares with Steve.

Steve’s breathing low and steady, already asleep. Some nights the sound of Steve breathing is enough to lull Bucky to sleep, gentle as ocean waves. But tonight, he feels too keyed up. It’s under his skin still, thinking about Steve and his dame back in London. He shouldn’t be surprised. He isn’t, really—he always knew it was headed that way. It’s the fact that Steve didn’t tell him that burns him up. That he didn’t think Bucky important enough to share it with.

He lies down on his pallet and sheds his boots, his trousers, his coat, until he’s just in his socks and thermal pants and shirt. For all his squirming around, all the laughing and crowing from the other guys outside the tent, Steve doesn’t so much as stir.

Bucky turns toward Steve, chest to Steve’s back, and curves his hand against Steve’s hip.

Steve’s breath hitches. Not asleep after all, then. Bucky curls his head toward Steve’s shoulder and nestles his nose into the crook of Steve’s neck.

“Bucky . . .” Steve’s voice is thick, but it’s a sleep-addled thickness. Even Bucky’s not deluded enough to think it’s anything more.

“You didn’t tell me,” Bucky murmurs. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He doesn’t have to clarify. Steve’s body tenses against his touch. “I didn’t think you’d . . .” Steve hesitates. “Care.”

“Liar.” His fingers curl into the lean V of Steve’s muscles, tapering across his hips. “You didn’t want me to know.”

“She’s a lady. It wasn’t my place to say.”

“But she was your first—first dame. And you couldn’t even tell me.”

Steve exhales slowly through his nose.

Bucky slides his fingers toward Steve’s stomach, the firm bunched muscles there sharp beneath his thermals. “What is it, Steve? You thought I’d be jealous, that I wouldn’t understand?”

“I know we aren’t kids anymore,” Steve whispers. “It’s not like it was—before. And every night, you’re dancing with a different broad, looking at her like she’s the world, taking her home, and then the next night it starts again—”

Bucky stifles a groan against Steve’s shoulder. “You know what I do with those London girls?” his whispers. “I walk ‘em home, give ‘em a peck on the cheek sometimes, and then I’m gone. Nothing like this.” His hand slips under the waistband of Steve’s thermal pants. “Never like this.”

Steve whimpers. Even in his big suit of armor, his muscles and strength and power, he’s still that scrawny punk. “Bucky . . .”

“Do you want me to stop?” Bucky whispers, mouth pressed against Steve’s ear. The rest of the guys stink of smoke and dirt and a long day, but not Steve. He smells like goddamned sunshine, scrubbed clean with bar soap, and Bucky just wants to drown in that smell again, lose himself in it like every fevered dream he’s had since they were teens. “Please.” His hand lowers, brushing against the velvet skin of Steve’s groin. “Tell me to stop.”

Steve swallows, the muscles of his throat moving against Bucky’s chin. “No.”

Bucky takes Steve’s length in his hand, and god, he’s so much thicker than before, but even though it’s been years he knows just the way to glide his palm against him, just the right rhythm, the way Steve’s hips buck back into him and press those rock-hard buns against his erection. Bucky uses his other hand to adjust himself, his shaft wedged between them, and as Steve’s body shudders from his touch the friction has him seeing stars.

“Careful, Steve. Don’t make a sound,” Bucky whispers, teasing, then grazes his teeth against Steve’s earlobe. Steve swallows back a moan and Bucky feels it ripple through him.

Bucky quickens his pace, his grip firm around Steve’s cock. He bites down hard on the meat of Steve’s shoulder, no longer trying to be gentle like he had to be before. The pressure building in him is unbearable, and he knows he’ll have to march in these same thermals tomorrow, but if he has to, then Steve does too. Something to tarnish his golden boy. Remind him of what they once had—

Bucky’s hips grind against Steve’s back as his muscles clench, and his grip falters as he loses himself in this one glorious moment, white heat enveloping him, Steve’s body against him, no wars and no one to judge them and nothing else creeping in, just him and his Steve and the silence of their night. Then Steve whimpers again, and Bucky covers Steve’s mouth with his free hand. Smothers his cries as Steve’s hips buck forward and he comes. Steve bites down on his fingers, drawing blood, but Bucky doesn’t care, he’ll never care for as long as he has this moment to remember, and when Steve’s climax subsides he slides his hand out of Steve’s pants and locks eyes with Steve in the dark silvery night and licks Steve’s seed from his hand, finger by finger.

Steve’s jaw works like he might have something to say, but instead he just turns in Bucky’s arms and curls against his chest, like he’s still a doll made of twigs, and falls asleep.

Outside the tent, it’s quiet, and for a minute Bucky thinks the rest of the guys have crawled into their tents as well. But then the conversation starts up again, just lower than before—only a few voices, now. Bucky presses his lips to Steve’s forehead and tries not to think about whatever’s coming next. It’ll never be as good as what he’s holding right now.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aka, Sad Stucky porn is my stress relief, apparently.
> 
> <3 [Bohemienne](http://starandshield.tumblr.com)

**II.**

The fucking mission briefing is never going to end.

“No. I don’t like it. We’re too exposed here on the hillside. No tree cover, no nothing.” Steve gestures toward the map that Bucky’s long since stopped staring at. “There’s got to be a better way into the depot.”

“If we’ve got the cover of night on our side,” Falsworth says, “we’ll be all right. Like the one outside of Lucerne.”

“Unless they’ve learned from that, and are ready for us,” Steve says.

The bunker far below London is too stuffy; Bucky’s skin is too goddamned tight. He’s restless, ready to be done with this, ready for a cigarette or a pint or something, anything to file the sharp edges off of his nerves.

Of course what he _wants_ is Steve Rogers, but he’s nowhere near ready to bring that up. Maybe not ever. Steve seemed content to pretend it had never happened, and goddamned fool that he is, he’s all too happy to play along.

But Steve’s always had a way of getting under his skin, a splinter he can’t pry free. Bucky thought he’d ridded himself of this pain long ago. But he’s right back where he started, with the added bite of the chasm the past six months have carved between them. Most of it his own fault.

He rubs, idly, at the crook of his elbow, as if he can still feel the syringe marks there. Not all of it. No, not all.

Finally, Agent Carter huffs and shoves off from the map table. “Fine. You boys figure it out. When you’ve got your plans finalized, then you can come to me with your requisitions list.”

Bucky watches her turn and storm from the map table, heels hammering the concrete floor in precise steps. She really is perfect for Steve, he can’t help but think—a little bit temperamental and a whole lot determined. He wonders what she knows about Steve in the days before the SSR got their hooks in him. What she’d think if she knew about Steve and him.

Surely he hasn’t told her. He’d have gotten an earful from her by now, Bucky’s sure, if Steve had. But then, Steve isn’t exactly the type to two-time, either. Not that he ever had much chance, before. Hell, maybe it was just a one-night thing to Steve, for old time’s sake, nothing countless other soldiers haven’t done to ward off the cold and lonesome ache of field work.

Bucky’s not sure he wants to know the answer, but he can’t resist. It’s a flaw of his. So he wedges in between Falsworth and Steve around the map and, quick as lightning, pinches Steve right on his star-spangled ass.

Steve’s eyebrows hit his hairline; he whirls around to see if anyone saw, but there’s only a wall behind them. He cuts his eyes toward Bucky— _don’t you dare_ —but Bucky answers him with a smirk.

“I think you boys are looking at it all wrong,” Bucky says, sweeping his hand over the map. “What about this narrow pass on the southern side?”

“What, go marching through there and leave our asses exposed to any snipers they have guarding it from above?” Dugan asks. “C’mon, Sarge. You’re a sniper. Isn’t that the first place you’d perch if you wanted an easy shot?”

“Not if I thought there was no chance anyone would be stupid enough to approach from the south. I’d park my ass in one of the trees on the eastern side, like you said earlier—watching that exposed slope.”

Steve turns toward him, wearing that stiff expression he always had when he was in dress uniform. “Okay, Sarge. You really want us to go through the pass, then?”

“It’ll give us the most cover, so yes.” Bucky looks right into his eyes, that hint of blue, that challenge he could never back down from. Mouth open, he runs his tongue against the edge of his teeth. “Might be a tight fit, Cap. But I bet we can make it work.”

Red sprouts on Steve’s face, across his cheeks and ears. Bucky holds his gaze a minute longer, grinning, then turns back to the map.

“We’ll need to make a hundred foot climb to access it,” Jones says, “but it’s nothing we haven’t done before . . .”

Steve clears his throat and turns back to the others, but Bucky’s not listening anymore. He’s thinking about the way Steve used to blush with his whole body. How much he misses that. How much he misses being the one to make him do it. Whispering in his ear as they brushed past one another at the social club in Brooklyn, or giving him a sly look and hooking his leg around Steve’s under the table at the buffeteria. Everything is different—Steve’s a god now, a symbol to the nation, and he’s a goddamn mess who sees the Hydra doctor’s grinning face when he closes his eyes. But he wants this again. He’s tasted it, he’s clutched it to his heart once more, and this time he refuses to let go.

“—Sarge?” Falsworth is saying, looking at him. “Don’t you agree?”

Bucky blinks, comes back to himself. “Yeah,” he says, though he has no idea what he’s agreeing to. “Sounds great to me.”

Then he has to walk away.

 

*

 

“Hey.” Steve catches up to him in the labyrinthine hallways of the base, deep beneath the London streets. “Bucky, wait up.”

“You gonna write me up, Cap? Leaving without officer’s dismissal?”

Steve brushes past and comes to a stop in front of him, blocking the narrow corridor. For a minute, he looks comically outsize, like the time they got a caricature done at the Brighton Beach boardwalk, and the artist made Steve look eight feet tall and exaggerated the cleft in Bucky’s chin. He isn’t the same Steve who fumbled at his fly beneath thick blankets while the rest of the Barnes family slept, the same Steve whose porcelain-doll lips tasted like springtime. But then, he’s not the same Bucky.

“What’s the matter with you, Buck?” Steve starts out sounding stern, but it melts halfway through. “If it’s something I said, or did—”

“It doesn’t matter.” Bucky steps to the side, but Steve keeps blocking him. “Trust me, pal, you don’t want to hear it.”

Steve folds his arms. “Just try me.”

A pair of uniformed intelligence officers approach from the other side of the hall; Steve steps aside to let them past. Bucky shakes his head. “Not here.”

Steve pauses, expression blank, then nods. “Follow me.”

They twist down a few more corridors, then Steve produces a key and unlocks an unmarked door. The cramped room inside looks stuck somewhere between an office and a storage closet; the desk wedged against one wall is blank, but the shelves overflow with surplus goods and dusty books.

“Technically my office,” Steve explains. “I’m supposed to have one as a captain, though I don’t have much use for it.”

They wedge inside the room, and Steve shuts and locks the door from inside.

“Steve . . .” Bucky starts to say, but then Steve cups Bucky’s face in his hands and kisses him like he’s drowning, like Bucky’s his last gasp of air.

Bucky slides his hips onto the desk to sit and pulls Steve between his legs. Steve’s mouth is so goddamned warm, and his hands are so firm as they grip the front of Bucky’s jacket, that for a minute Bucky forgets what he’s supposed to be angry about. Hell, he forgets his own name, losing himself in the rasp of Steve’s lips on his and the smooth plane of Steve’s jaw as he runs his thumb along it and the way Steve’s breath tickles his cheek when they slowly ease apart.

Bucky plants his hands on Steve’s hips and pulls him closer, closer.

“I miss you,” Bucky says, looking down. “I miss the way we used to be.”

Steve runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair, soothing in its repetition. Steve’s jaw tightens, like he’s considering his words carefully, but the fact he has to think about it at all tells Bucky everything he needs to know.

Bucky’s a fucking idiot. He couldn’t leave well enough alone; couldn’t be grateful for a few stolen minutes in the forest and never think of it again.

But it’s the truth. He misses Steve, and every time he looks at him, that wanting cuts into him a little more like a too-tight rope.

“Things were different then,” Steve finally says. “We didn’t have a million people watching us, every second of every day. No one cared what we did, where we went . . .”

“I know.” Bucky closes his eyes. “And then you’ve got your dame—”

Steve stiffens; his hands fall from Bucky’s face. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Bucky asks, sitting up straighter.

If they don’t talk about it, Bucky’s going to twist himself into knots, never knowing where he stands with Steve. Not knowing if it’s okay to curl against him on a cold night, or hold his gaze across the room. Not knowing if the tickle of breath against his neck is a hello or a goodbye. The not knowing is so much worse.

“What is it you want from me now?” Bucky asks. “Am I just your girl on the side? You can call me for a good time when you got no other options?”

“You know that’s not true,” Steve says, running his hands down Bucky’s arms.

“I mean—if that’s all you want me to be, then fine.” Bucky’s glaring at him now. The anger feels good; it feels like a knife gripped in his palm. “If I’m just some nice tight hole you can fuck to take the edge off during missions, then at least have the guts to say—”

“Keep it down,” Steve whispers, eyes wrenched shut.

Bucky sighs, and the pleasure is gone. He hates the kicked-puppy look on Steve’s face. Hates the anger burning in his chest.

Hates the fact that, despite it all, he’s rock-hard and he’d agree to just about anything to taste Steve one more time.

“I’m not exactly a free man,” Steve says, his voice a low hum. “The government made me this way, and right now, whatever they say goes.”

“Right. Can’t let people think Captain America’s some fairy,” Bucky says bitterly.

“It’s not just that.” Steve bites his lower lip. “Bucky . . . you’re the one who pushed me away.”

Bucky turns his head to the side so he doesn’t have to look at Steve. He doesn’t want to be reminded. He’d give anything to take it back—but then, he knew why he had to do it at the time. Even if he couldn’t make Steve understand then, it was for the best.

“You said it was for my own good. That because you couldn’t always be around to protect me, especially once you enlisted, it would be easier for me. Said it was time to get on with our lives.” Steve’s voice wavers. “Like we were just some dumb kids playing.”

It sounds even worse coming from Steve, all the foolish excuses he made, and they both know it. Bucky’s face heats with shame. The real truth was, he didn’t want Steve suffering. There was a clock ticking over his head the minute he shipped out—every guy had one and they knew it; they just didn’t know how long their clock had left. When it counted down, that’s when the letter would come. The gold star and the candles and the casseroles for his family.

For his family—not for Steve. No one would be there to sit with Steve while he cried and cried. No one to rub his back and help to ease his coughs. He couldn’t put Steve through that. He couldn’t let him suffer in silence, with no one to understand why it broke his heart so much.

 _We wish to offer our sincere condolences to the Barnes family . . ._ He couldn’t, wouldn’t put Steve through that.

“So I did like you said.” Steve’s jaw goes tight. “I moved on. Took care of myself. Found myself a new job, got me a uniform, got me a real sweet lady. But now that it’s real, now that I’m here, you just can’t stand it, can you?” Steve’s practically spitting the words out. “You just can’t stand the thought that maybe for once, you aren’t my whole world.”

Bucky looks back at him, Steve’s shoulders taut with anger, his eyes flinty, a single golden lock draping down his forehead where Bucky knocked it out of place. Bucky reaches up and brushes it back. Can’t let Captain America be anything short of perfect.

There’s a hole in Bucky’s chest where a thousand bullets should have gone. But it’s Steve who tears it wide open. He should’ve known when he shipped out. Without Steve in his life, his clock ticking down was just a mercy.

“You’re my whole world still,” Bucky says.

And it’s the goddamn truth.

Steve sucks in his breath through his teeth and lets his tension unfurl. Bucky’s watching him, lip still caught in his teeth. Remembering the scrawny little guy who was no less angry, no less capable of breaking his heart.

Slowly, Steve rests his forehead against Bucky’s, eyes squeezing shut. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry . . .”

“No. I should be. Because you’re right.” Bucky wraps his arms around Steve’s waist and strokes his back. “All I’ve ever wanted is you, and I want you all to myself.”

“Buck . . .”

Bucky shakes his head. “No, I know it’s wrong. I know you don’t even belong to yourself anymore, much less to me. But every time I’m reminded of it . . . “

_It feels like gasoline pouring into his veins and the restraints are too tight and his teeth are cracking and the blue light carves its way inside his skull—_

Bucky takes a breath, makes the images clear. “Well, it burns.”

Steve studies him for a moment, that artist’s eye roving across his skin. Then he kisses the bridge of Bucky’s nose, and then his cheek. His hands slide under Bucky’s jacket and dress uniform shirt, long and nimble, then curl around the waistband of his pants. Bucky’s abdomen contracts and he grabs Steve’s wrists.

“What do you want, Steve?” Bucky whispers.

Steve swallows. “The same thing as you.”

“No, you don’t.” _Because I want more than you can ever give, not now that you’re their man,_ but he can never say that. “I know you’re not a two-timer,” he says instead. “You’re too righteous for that.”

Steve hesitates. Thinking about his girl. Bucky knows, because it’s the same face Steve used to make about him.

“She . . . she knows what you and I were, before.”

Bucky bristles at that. He tells her about him, but he doesn’t tell him about her. Another jealous thorn pricks at him, and it burns just as bad as the syringe.

“She and I, we’re not . . . I mean, we’re allowed to—when we’re on missions, or she’s out in the field, we—we have an understanding—”

Bucky isn’t so sure. He’s seen the lethal looks she fires at the other girls on base when they stare too long at Steve’s ass. But he has to take Steve at his word. If he can’t believe in Steve Rogers, then there’s no goddamn point to anything in this world.

“I’ve never wanted to act on it before,” Steve admits.

Bucky shakes his head. It’s his own fault, and he knows it. He pushed Steve into this. “I shouldn’t have shoved you away.”

“Do you know how long it took me to imagine being anything to anyone but you?” Steve’s voice turns watery; it pulls a guilty tide in Bucky’s chest. “You were my world, too. And then, when they told me you might be dead—”

Bucky tips Steve’s chin up with his fingers and wipes away the tear forming in the corner of Steve’s eye. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “We’re here now. For as long as you’ll let me—I’ll stay by your side.”

The corners of Steve’s mouth twitch. “Yeah?”

“End of the line, all that shit we used to say.” Back before. It seemed so easy, then. When their entire world was the five boroughs and a musty rented room. But they’re both stuck on this god-forsaken front together—no reason they can’t have it once more. Hell, he’d do anything, if it meant another smile on Steve’s face.

Steve answers him with another kiss, and Bucky’s mouth melts into his. Steve’s sunshine and the strongest alcohol all at once, warming him to the bone and setting his world spinning. They’re hands and lips and the softest, quietest moans, shared like secrets in the narrow space of the room.

Steve unfastens the buttons on Bucky’s fly and slips his hand inside. Bucky’s belly tightens, reacting to Steve’s touch. He sucks Steve’s lower lip, tugging him closer, letting him know how fucking good it feels as he hardens in Steve’s grip and Steve coaxes his erection free. Steve’s touch is gentle, so gentle it’s a fucking tease, and Bucky’s practically dizzy from it.

“Remember,” Steve says wryly, “don’t be too loud.”

“Motherfucker,” Bucky breathes.

And Steve sinks to his knees.

Steve’s mouth is like a fist, firm around him and warm and hungry, taking Bucky’s whole length as his hand presses against the base of his cock. Bucky curses under his breath and digs his nails into the edge of the desk. He’s not going to last long if he doesn’t distract himself. But he wants it to last forever.

“You look like a fucking angel,” Bucky whispers. “And I can’t wait to dirty you up.”

Steve’s gaze flicks up to meet his, baby blues outlined in a golden fringe, and Bucky rocks forward. Big, little, he loves Steve every which way, but what he wouldn’t give to be back in Brooklyn with him again, the war won and this life behind them and nothing stretching before them on the horizon but this, an endless life of this.

He’s selfish and he doesn’t care. He seizes Steve’s hair between his fingers and pulls tight. He wants Steve Rogers, he’s always wanted him, when no one else saw what a goddamned gift he was, and he’s desperate enough to bend every which way to have him.

Steve’s tongue glides hard against the length of his shaft, and Bucky thrusts forward, unable to wait any longer. He spills into Steve’s mouth, pulling at his hair, shuddering as ecstasy washes over him and catches him in its undertow.

Maybe it isn’t fair, Bucky thinks, head lolling back against the wall, body tingling, watching Steve clean himself, careful not to muss his dress uniform. Maybe it isn’t fair that any one person should get this man all to themselves. But there was a time he believed things would never have to change. They’d keep their apartment in Brooklyn and Bucky would keep working long hours at the garage and the drugstore and fucking everywhere else that would pay him to foot Steve’s art school bill and yeah, people would pester them about finding nice girls and settling down someday, but they’d just smile and deflect it like they always did and come home to one another’s arms.

It never should have changed. There never should have been a war and a serum and a Hydra labor camp. They could be back home in their shitty little one-room, wrapped in each other’s arms in the Murphy bed.

But, hell, if Captain America’s rosy lips on his cock in an army storage room is all Bucky can get, then he’ll take it. He’ll fucking take it.

Steve stands, and Bucky pulls him into an embrace. Now both their hair is a wreck, but Bucky tries to brush Steve’s back into something like order. A little messy, though, he doesn’t mind. Then every time he looks at Steve, he can see the mark he’s left on him. His one way of declaring to the world: _that’s mine._

“We ship out tomorrow,” Steve says, his mouth against Bucky’s cheek. “Belly-crawling our way across the Alps.”

“I’ll be putting you on your belly plenty while we’re out there,” Bucky replies. “Don’t you worry about that.”

 

*

 

When Bucky’s leaving the mess hall after dinner, he hears the _ping ping_ of Carter’s heels clocking down the hallway at record speed, and his shoulders draw up, already bracing for a fight.

“Sergeant Barnes,” she calls out. And then she’s seizing him by the collar and slamming him through the nearest doorway and into an empty room.

He never stood a chance.

“Ma’am—miss—” he squeaks, but she presses her forearm up against his throat and pins him against the wall. Truth be told, it’s a little hot, not that Bucky thinks right now is the time to tell her that.

She stares hard at him, searching his face for something, though he’s not sure what. It’s no wonder they send her in for interrogations. She hasn’t even asked him a damn thing and he’s ready to spill his guts.

“Do you love him?” she asks. Her eyes are hard as bullets.

Bucky swallows, the ridge of his throat rubbing against her arm; she eases up, but only a bit. No sense in lying. No sense trying to downplay it. Even if he can’t say the words to Steve, he might as well say it now. “Yes.”

She exhales. Eases back onto her heels. “This war is too cruel. Too unforgiving.” Her expression softens. “None of us should have to die with regrets—wondering what could have been.”

He manages a curt nod. When he closes his eyes, he feels the poison they shot into his veins. He remembers the glimpses of Steve that flashed before him when he thought he was stumbling into his grave. Not the ones he would have wanted. Not the ones of his fingers in Steve’s hair and his arm around his shoulder and a molten sunset spilled before them as it spread across Manhattan. No, the memories that came to him then had been Steve’s face when he’d told him off. _It’s better for everyone this way,_ he’d said, but Steve’s tears said otherwise.

Then she presses against him with renewed rage. “Break his heart again, though,” she says, “and I’ll break every bloody bone in your body.”

Bucky blinks. “Yes, ma’am.”

With a red smile, she releases him, straightens his jacket, and then strides away.


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, ma, no tears!
> 
> (Probably why it's so short.)
> 
> <3 [Bohemienne](http://starandshield.tumblr.com)

**III.**

When Bucky volunteered for advance scouting, this isn’t what he had in mind.

He’s been tied to a goddamn tree branch for five hours now, watching the supply route to the Alpine Hydra base. One fucking truck’s gone by, obviously straining to carry its heavy load, but he hasn’t caught sight of a single other thing of interest in this rocky, wind-whipped hellhole. The forest’s snowy silence is ringing in his ears, and he’s set back plenty far enough from the road not to have to worry about being heard.

It’s not like before. The enemy bearing down on their trenches; the blue beams of light arcing across the night, and any moment he could be next. He’s faced that death, he’s lived with that death, he’s let that death tie him down and taunt him for days on end. He knows it might come again. Any moment, any day. But right now, he feels invincible. A little reckless. And a whole lot determined to do like Carter said, and make the goddamned most he can of whatever’s left of this life.

And so he presses the button on the encrypted shortwave transmitter. “Sarge to Cap, Sarge to Cap, you read? Over.”

It takes a few minutes, the silence so complete a deer passes beneath him as it snuffles around for something to graze on, but finally the radio crackles to life, too loud in the dead of the woods. Bucky spins the volume down as low as he can. “This is Cap, Sarge. I copy. How’re we doing? Over.”

“Bored out of our fucking skull, over.”

Steve laughs softly; even in the staticky transmission, Bucky can practically see him, blue eyes sparkling, smile pushing dimples into his cheeks. He’d much rather be nipping at those cheeks right now. Three more hours until his scouting shift is over, and he can warm his hands between Steve’s thighs, thaw his lips against Steve’s neck . . .

And fuck if it doesn’t get his blood rushing and all his senses dialed up.

“Cap?” Bucky whispers into the radio, his voice turned husky. “You got your ears on? Over.”

Another pause before Steve answers. “I do now. Over.”

“Glad to hear it.” Bucky’s grin spreads across his face as he stretches forward on the branch. “Because all I can think about out here is everything I’m planning to do to you when I get back to camp.” He bites his lower lip. Squeezes his eyes closed for a minute as heat stokes at the base of his spine. “Over.”

There’s another stretch of silence in which Bucky can imagine Steve squirming in his seat, or at least the tent floor where he’s sitting cross-legged. Finally, the radio sparks again. “Glad to know you’ve got your mind on the mission, Sarge. Over.”

Bucky laughs to himself. It helps ease up the pressure building inside him, the release that only Steve can fully give. “If by mission, you mean that granite cleft of your ass. Yeah. You could say that’s my mission, Cap,” he whispers into the radio. “I’m going to chisel those cheeks apart. Find that sweet little pink hole of yours, and loosen you up with my fingers.”

Another pause. “That’s certainly . . . one way to do it, Sarge.—Over.”

“Well, a good soldier always comes prepared. And I brought something with me to help.” Bucky’s voice is turning thick, but he can’t stop grinning, wondering just how red Steve’s turning now. “Two fingers, three, whatever it takes to warm you up. Whatever it takes to make you squirm as I stroke you just right.” He swallows. And then, once you’re good and loose, I swear to god, Rogers, I’m going to pound that ass into the next decade.”

When Steve doesn’t reply, Bucky imagines the look on his face. Rosy lips parted, jaw loose, mouth raw and sweet and ready to beg.

“I want to make you scream into your bedroll. Just like you used to do to me. See how you like it, a mouth full of pillows while I’m inside you. Trying your god damnedest not to let the neighbors hear, when all you want to do is shout so loud they hear it in New Jersey.”

“I’m not, uh, sure that’s up to operating procedure,” Steve says huskily.

“It is now, Cap. Let me hear how much you love the feel of my dick buried deep in your ass. C’mon. Tell me you love it, Steve.”

Steve clicks the radio on, but then stops transmitting without saying anything. Bucky’s trying to imagine how he looks, hard-on straining at the red, white and blue padded suit and his breaths turned hot and raw. Even the old Steve, the tiny Steve, had an impressive imagination on him once Bucky got him all spun up. The soft groans he made when he lay on top of Bucky, stomach to stomach, rubbing against each other, every slight movement like a goddamned earthquake under his skin.

 _Fuck_ , he misses it. He misses bending over the couch, just the right height to give Steve access. He misses sliding his hand into Steve’s lap while they took in a picture show. And most of all, he misses falling asleep with his arms wrapped around Steve. Waking up to find him still there—as if he might have evaporated like a too-good dream.

The radio clicks on again. “Sarge?”

Bucky sucks in his breath. “Yeah, Cap?”

“What would . . .” Steve’s stammering, the punk, the same flush-faced kid he used to be first trying out a dirty word. Whispering just what he wanted Bucky to do to him like he could barely say it out loud. God, but it makes Bucky fall for him all over again.

And makes Bucky want to be extra filthy, to cover for them both.

“What . . . would be the next step in this proposed plan of yours, Sarge? Over.”

“After I loosen you up with my fingers, you mean? Find that sweet little node deep inside you and make you curl up like a fist?”

“Yeah.” Steve swallows audibly. “After that.”

“Well, that’s when I thrust into you, of course. Slow at first. Make you feel every goddamn inch. Savor how tight and fucking hot you are around me. Bite down on your shoulder, work my fingers through your hair . . .”

“That sounds . . .” Steve exhales. “Risky.”

“Well, I’m a reckless kinda guy.” He remembers the shape Steve’s mouth used to make when he came. Eyes squeezed shut, head tossed back, his every tiny limb locked up like a coiled spring. And he remembers, too, how Steve felt when he came inside of him. The sudden rush of heat. Hell, sometimes that alone was enough to push Bucky over the edge. But just in case . . .

“Then I’ll work a little faster. Tell you how goddamned gorgeous you look when I’m taking you from behind. You’re a fucking work of art, after all. And so are the sounds you make.”

Steve laughs softly into the radio. “I don’t know about all that.”

“It’s true. You always have been.”

“Yeah, Sarge, well . . . So are you.”

Bucky’s throat tightens, but he ignores it. “I’ll be right there, Steve. I’ll be right on top of you, hips pressed against you, sinking into you the whole goddamn length. I’ll be pinning you down, your skin sweat-slick and warm.” He shudders. “Though you’ll be even slicker when I come inside you and it runs down your thighs . . .”

Steve makes an audible sound across the radiowaves, then covers it up with an awkward cough.

“But I won’t be done with you then.”

“You’re sure that won’t—complete our task?”

“Hell, no.” Bucky grins. “You’ve got to take your turn.”

Another long pause. Steve adjusting himself, probably. As it is, Bucky’s erection is doing obscene things to the damn tree branch. “And how do you propose we handle that, Sarge?” Steve asks.

“I could let you take a turn . . .” Bucky rubs his jaw. “But no, I’ve got a better idea. I’m going to make you rub it out in front of me.” His grin deepens. “Let me watch you. Let me show you just how you like it done.”

“Actually, I think that might—might work better as a team mission, over.”

Steve’s voice sounds like it’s wound tighter than Bucky’s balls. It makes him laugh, throaty and low. “Tell you what then, Cap. If you do a real good job, really give me a show, then maybe, just maybe, I’ll help you out. I’ll nibble my way down that smooth, hairless stomach of yours and wrap my tongue around your cock.” He keeps the transmit button pressed down and breathes into it, heavy and slow, before finally adding, “Over.”

Right now, the ropes holding Bucky to the branch feel far too tight. His clothes are too tight, his skin’s too tight, he’s itching with want. He’s staked this small patch of freedom for him and Steve and he’s determined to make the most of it.

“Are you alone, Cap?” Bucky asks. “I mean—I know you’re at camp. But are the other guys with you in the tent?”

“It’s, um . . . just me for now. But if I need to get the others—”

“No. I know they can hear you. That’s all right.” Bucky closes his eyes, just for a second—he’s still on watch, as useless as it is—but lets himself imagine Steve crouched over the radio, feeling just as bound up as him. “But if you’re in some kinda way right now, same as me . . .” He grins again. “I’ve got a hard-on with your name on it, so you better be fucking ready when I’m back at camp.”

Another laden pause. “Like you said, Sarge. A good soldier’s always prepared.” He can practically hear Steve lick his lips. “Over and out.”

 

*

 

He wasn’t wrong.

Hips pressing into the firm curve of Steve’s ass, fingers digging into his scalp, teeth sinking into his shoulder, Steve is ready to take Bucky inside him. Mouth to Steve’s ear, telling him how fucking good he feels, how warm and tight and perfect he is, Steve is ready. Like Brooklyn, but Bucky had usually been beneath him then, Steve’s slender figure fitting snugly atop him. Now Bucky is the smaller one and it feels every bit as right as it had before.

He swallows back his cries just like before. Pretends that someday, maybe he won’t have to.

And when he comes, it tears through him like thunder, it washes over them like cleansing rain. In the darkness of their snowy tent, their friends ten feet away, he can’t imagine any world beyond their two bodies. It’s everything he’s fighting for. It’s all he’s ever needed.

Suddenly, he’s not so sure that home’s a place they need to go back to. Not when everything he wants is right here, drowsing in his arms, hay-gold hair sticking every which way, smelling of their sex and sweat. He thought the war would tear them apart. He let it, for a time.

Now he wonders if he really wants the war to end.


	4. IV

**IV.**

Steve holds up one finger as the rest of the Commandos crowd around the bar, breaths held, grins massive. He’s draining the entire bottle of gin—the cheap wartime British stuff, not that anyone’s in a position to complain—in one go, but Bucky’s just watching the way his throat bobs as he swallows and the way his eyelashes flutter against his cheek as he tries not to choke on the awful taste. At last, the last of the gin disappears, and the guys cheer and slam down the packs of cigarettes they’d been betting with.

“C’mon, Cap, you gotta be feelin’ at least a little buzzed,” Dugan says. Red-nosed, leaning his weight against whoever’s nearest to him at the moment, Bucky figures Dugan’s way past buzzed himself.

Steve props his hands on his fists and effects his Captain America pose, chin high, gaze pointed toward the red, white, and blue horizon. “Just drunk on victory, soldier.”

The boys howl with laughter and slap at his arms. Not Bucky, though—he can’t stop looking at Steve and basking in his patriotic glow. The rowdy drinking songs in the next room, the couples necking in the booths, the soldiers and sailors burning through what’s left of London’s booze—might as well be static over the radio. Steve’s the only melody in his head.

As Falsworth orders another round of shots—“for us unfortunate mere mortals,” he says—they move toward a just-vacated corner table and crowd into the chairs. Bucky claims the spot at Steve’s right hand, and only wonders afterward if he should be embarrassed by how quickly he’s done so. But they’re all in love with Steve and one another in their own way, like the goddamned apostles in Sister Mary’s bible class, and no one so much as gives him a second glance.

“C’mon,” Bucky murmurs, head turned toward Steve. “You gotta be feeling it at least a little, right?”

Steve’s cheeks flush pink. “Maybe just a little.”

Bucky shakes his head with a disbelieving laugh. “Remember when we got into my pops’s moonshine?”

“Was that the time I . . . oh.” The pink deepens into red. “I don’t remember much, but I do remember _that_.”

“You put on a damn fine show when you’re all sauced up,” Bucky says. “Maybe I can get an encore performance someday.”

“If I recall correctly, this audience member couldn’t keep his hands to himself during the show. Some people got no respect for fine art.”

Bucky leans forward to nip at Steve’s neck, ready to show him just how much he appreciates a work of art, but Falsworth slams the tray of shot glasses onto the center of the table. “All right, chaps, bottoms up! Let’s show the Captain we can keep up.”

Bucky snatches up his shotglass and turns a wicked grin on Steve. “Bottoms up, Cap.”

In return, beneath the table, Steve’s hand slides up Bucky’s thigh.

Bucky sucks in his breath like he’s been sucker punched. Instinctively—and god, does he hate that it’s instinct, that it’s as ingrained in his muscle memory as assembling his rifle or watching the Commandos’ six—he scans the bar to see if anyone’s noticing. But their backs are to the peeling plaster wall and Steve’s hand is under the table and everything smells like booze and mistakes just begging to be made, so he shifts his leg just so, gives Steve the faintest smile, only the left corner of his mouth, as they make another round of toasts.

“I swear, the Kraut just about shat himself when he found out I was the guy on the other end of the radio,” Jones says. “Served the son of a bitch right. Hell, my Sunderland accent’s better than his was.”

“Think they’ll fall for it again?” Morita asks.

Jones grins. “Not like he lived to warn the others. Hats off to Sarge for that.”

Bucky turns his attention to Jones just in time to return his salute, but bites back a groan as Steve’s fingertips graze against his shaft, already at half-mast.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the sorriest goddamned band of misfits I ever had the pleasure of commanding.”

Bucky’s eyes widen in horror. Colonel Phillips stands over their table, wearing what passes for a smile with him, and the other guys quickly scramble to their feet to salute.

 _Fuck fuck fuck._ Standing up’s not an option—he’s gotta think quick. Bucky leans forward like he’s gonna stand, but then intentionally bumps the table with knee, sending several steins sloshing and a cascade of ale drifting down the far end of the table.

“Watch it, Sarge!” Morita says. “That’s liquid gold you’re spillin’ there!”

Bucky makes a half-hearted effort of leaning over the table like he means to try to clean it up, but the others are already on it, waving him off.

“At ease, soldier,” Phillips says. “Last thing I need is my best sniper laid up in the medical ward with a drinking injury.”

“Sorry, fellas.” Bucky shrugs, the unapologetic grin and shrug that used to piss his ma off so bad, and sinks back into his chair.

Phillips shakes his head. “A couple of nice young ladies were asking if the big damn heroes were here, wanted to give you some ribbons they made or some shit to show their appreciation. I told them I didn’t know any big damn heroes, but I had a couple of banged-up chuckleheads who might do the trick.”

Dernier and Jones whisper something undoubtedly filthy to each other in French; Morita scruffs up his hair. “Well, I ain’t got much use for ribbons, but I’m sure I can show my gratitude all the same.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to hear a damn thing about it,” the colonel says. “And Captain? Don’t give Carter a reason to give me an earful, got it?”

“Scout’s honor,” Steve says, raising three fingers with one hand as he returns the other to Bucky’s lap. Bucky bites down hard on his tongue to keep from making a sound.

“Where is your dame anyway?” Dugan asks. “She ain’t shy about drinkin’ the rest of us under the table.”

Steve gives him a one-shouldered shrug. “Something about a big briefing in the morning. I’m afraid you all are stuck with me for tonight.”

There’s a thorn scratching inside of Bucky, jealousy even when he has no right. He and Carter have their understanding, but that doesn’t mean he can’t push and pull. “We’ll do our best to make up for it,” Bucky says, grinning too wickedly, and not caring a goddamned bit who sees.

Phillips has headed back to the pub entrance, and is beckoning to a group of women outside. “The Commandos are over here, ladies. Even uglier in person.”

In no time at all, the gals descend on the Commandos, skirts swishing against their legs with fake black seams painted up the back and their victory curls bobbing. One red-headed dame parks herself on Morita’s lap in no time while a blonde drags Falsworth to the dance floor. Dugan starts making eyes with a British Indian dish in a sapphire dress, and a button-cute brunette loops her arm through Jones’s and asks him to light her cigarette. Dernier slings his arm around two and starts whispering to them both in turn.

But Captain Rogers is the main attraction, and they keep crowding around him like he’s the fucking pope. “Sorry, ladies, but I’m spoken for,” Steve says, not that it does any good.

“What about you, Sarge?” a Scottish gal asks, leaning forward until her knockers are about to pop out of her neckline. “You got a lass back home?”

Bucky glances slyly at Steve before turning back. “As a matter of fact, there is someone waiting for me there. We’re gonna get us a little flat in Brooklyn after the war. Maybe a dog or something too.”

“Oh, c’mon, boys, one dance won’t kill you.”

Steve turns toward Bucky, eyebrows raised. “What do you say, Sarge? Maybe just one dance. I think our sweethearts would allow us that.”

 _Cold showers, cold showers,_ Bucky thinks. _Grandma Barnes and the smell at the old folks’ home._ “Yeah, I reckon one dance won’t hurt.”

The girls squeal and reach for their hands. _Cold showers. Cold showers and the—_

_Cold metal clamps around his wrists, his ankles, his throat—_

_The procedure is about to begin—_

Bucky swallows, mouth clotted, and stands up.

The girls yank them onto the dance floor just in time for some schmaltzy slow number. Bucky slips his hand around his girl’s waist—Fiona, she says her name is—and laces his fingers through her other hand and rocks her gently to the beat. She’s not a bad dancer, and smells real nice, too, something floral but darker, not that he can smell much besides the spilled beer and whiskey on everyone’s breaths. They make polite conversation, something about London weather and how she’d love to see New York someday after the war is won. His mouth trips around the right questions and replies like it’s any other dance.

_I’ll be with you soon in apple blossom time, I’ll be waiting then to change your name to mine . . ._

Over her shoulder, he catches Steve’s eye. His gal’s nuzzled up against his chest, and he gives Bucky a wry shrug. In response, Bucky lowers his lashes and gives Steve his most smoldering bedroom eyes and grazes his lower lip with his teeth.

Steve swallows, smile gone, and jerks his attention back to his date.

 _You’d be so good to come home to,_ Bucky thinks. _Don’t care whether I take your name. All I need is you and somewhere safe for us to be._ Somehow, in the war, they feel safer than ever—even safer than when they’d roomed in Brooklyn together, safer than in the thin-walled flat with nosy neighbors and landlords and work to be done at all hours just to manage to pay their way.

But Bucky’s daring to think about an after. Like he knows he never should. He wants to pretend there’s a forever. That this won’t be their end.

The song finishes, and they lead the girls off the dance floor to where some of the Commandos are buying drinks for their dates. “Oh, c’mon, Cap, how about one more?” Steve’s girl asks.

“Sorry, ma’am. No can do,” Steve says.

Bucky pecks Fiona on the cheek and excuses himself, arm brushing against Steve’s back as he walks past him. Under his breath, low enough no one without enhanced hearing should be able to hear, he says, “Meet me in the bathroom.”

 

*

 

Steve is a warm, sweet mouth and strong hands digging into his dress shirt collar as he backs Bucky against the white-tiled bathroom wall. “Harder,” Bucky whispers, “like you fucking mean it,” and Steve’s grip on his shirt slackens like he doesn’t understand. So Bucky curls his fingers around Steve’s, a sneer on his lips, and shoves himself back against the wall.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Steve says, flustered.

Bucky laughs, dry and frantic. Like that’s a thing that can still happen to him. He’s fallen out of trees and watched bullet grazes heal up to nothing but a faint white line on his calf and kicked in a heavily locked door. He’s got some kind of guardian angel around him, or maybe a bargain with the devil; he can’t seem to get hurt when he _wants_ to.

“You’re not gonna hurt me. Promise.” He fixes his gaze square on Steve. “I want it.”

Steve takes a deep breath. Yanks Bucky up by the collar. And slams him against the tiles so hard his teeth rattle.

Bucky’s head rolls back and he hisses through his teeth. Steve slowly smiles, once he sees Bucky’s not hurt, and pins him against the wall with another hungry kiss. “You like that?” Steve murmurs, gasping for air with his lips right at Bucky’s ear.

“Fuck, yes.” He runs his hand down Steve’s chest, past the gleaming rows of medals and the freshly polished brass buttons of his dress jacket. Lets his fingers hook around Steve’s belt and runs his tongue along the edge of his teeth. “But not as much as if you were inside me.”

Steve whimpers and buries the sound against Bucky’s throat.

“C’mon. No one can hear us.” Bucky coaxes Steve’s slacks open; feels Steve firming under his palm. The brass band music is pulsing through the floor and the roar of hundreds of voices batters against the bathroom door. “I’ll be good, Steve.”

Steve laughs and rests his forehead against the tile. “I don’t know about that.”

“Only one way to find out.”

He curls his fingers around Steve’s shaft, cups him, gently, then more insistent. Gives him his dewiest look. Steve exhales, hot, against Bucky’s neck as he holds back another groan. “I didn’t bring anything,” Steve says.

Bucky grins, releases Steve, slips one hand into his jacket, and pulls out a small tin.

“Jesus. This was your wicked plan the whole time, huh?” Steve presses against him, the head of his cock probing against Bucky’s trousers. Probably leaving a stain, not that Bucky could give two shits.

“I’ve got wicked plans within wicked plans.” He yanks at the knot of Steve’s tie. “So you’d better fuck me good.”

Steve’s mouth crushes against his, forceful, tasting of gin and all the heat they press between them in the nights out in the field. All pretense of gentleness is gone. He’s tearing at Bucky’s belt and trousers, a button snapping and skittering to the floor. Shoving them down to Bucky’s thighs. Cupping his hand around Bucky’s ass and working one finger into his hole.

Bucky clenches up, the roughness of it sharp and painful but so goddamned good. He’s not drunk—he should be drunk—but his head is fucking spinning with how bad he wants and needs this. “C’mon,” Bucky murmurs, “you’re gonna need to loosen me more than that. Hang on.”

Steve blushes, pretty as a picture, but Bucky wriggles his way out of his dress shoes and leaves his slacks and boxers on the sticky bathroom floor while Steve scoops two fingers through the Vaseline.

“Tell me what you want, Steve.” Bucky grimaces as Steve slides two fingers inside him and presses deep. He brushes up against something deep inside Bucky that makes his vision swirl. “Fucking tell me.”

“I want to—press you up against this wall, and—”

He’s gone goddamned tongue-tied, red-faced and embarrassed even as he’s knuckle-deep in Bucky’s ass, and Bucky just has to laugh. “C’mon. I know you’ve got a dirty mind. Don’t be afraid to say it out loud.”

“I want to f-fuck you, okay?” Steve breathes heavy against his ear. “I never want to stop.”

Bucky swallows, a sudden heaviness in his throat. He never wants to stop either, never wants this war to end and all the questions that’ll come with its close. Whether Steve and his dame will trip off toward the altar and a happily ever after with a picket fence. Whether they can ever go back home, go back to the way things were before.

So he laughs it off. Hates himself for it. “I want you to f-fuck me too,” he teases.

Steve shakes his head; shoves his fingers deeper. “You fucking punk.”

Bucky reaches for the tin of Vaseline on the lip of the sink and scoops a huge chunk onto his fingers. Smears it around Steve’s erection. He looks Steve right in the eye as Steve eases his hand out of Bucky’s ass. “So prove it.”

Steve takes a deep breath and steps back, holding Bucky at shoulder’s length. “I don’t know if I—I mean, I haven’t—not since—”

“You haven’t been inside me since they got you all jacked up on superjuice and made your cock even bigger than it was before?” Bucky asks, his tone still teasing.

Steve’s face is red as a sunset now. “Um, yeah.”

“And you’re afraid you’ll rip me in fucking two?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

There’s a darkness in Bucky: that jealous thorniness he felt before, but something oilier, something more determined. He’s tried to shake it off, but now he wants to let it in. Wants it to harden his limbs and sharpen his teeth. It’s in his blood—maybe it’s always been there—but now it’s his bones, his meat, his skin.

“Your dame. Carter. She give you any complaints about your size?” The words come out all jagged, but he doesn’t care. Let them slice ‘em both up for a bit.

“Um, no—not as long as we—properly prepare—”

“Then don’t fucking worry about me.”

Steve squares his shoulders. An officer at goddamned attention, aside from the trousers around his knees and his raging, lubed-up hard-on. He seizes Bucky by the backs of his thighs and hoists him up; presses his back up against the wall.

Bucky locks his ankles around Steve’s waist and angles his hips, curling his stomach and rocking way back.

It takes a minute for Steve to slide inside his ass because the angle is all off, and he’s being so goddamned careful, but once he sinks in deep he shudders and closes his eyes. “Oh, god.”

Bucky tenses his muscles around him. His eyes are watering from that knife-edge of pain and excruciating pleasure. “I told you.”

Still bracing him against the wall, Steve eases out partway, then thrusts again. Bucky grunts, feral, at the friction.

“Jesus, Buck.”

Steve’s face is already slack with pleasure. It isn’t going to take him long. Bucky reaches down and takes one of Steve’s hands in his. Brings it to his throat. Then spreads Steve’s fingers around his neck and presses down.

“Bucky, what’re you—”

“Please,” Bucky whispers.

“I’m a lot stronger than I used to be.“

Bucky clenches his cheeks, _hard,_ making Steve shudder. “So am I.”

Steve’s expression darkens, and he closes his hand around Bucky’s neck.

They find an awkward rhythm, Steve thrusting up, Bucky’s spine digging into the tile, and his grip on Bucky’s throat pinning him in place. Bucky sinks his nails into Steve’s back as the tip of his cock traces the edge of Steve’s jacket. The raucous sounds of the pub on the other side of the door swallow up Steve’s soft moans and Bucky’s fiercer grunts. And the harder Steve digs his fingers into the cords of Bucky’s throat, the more Bucky could swear his lungs will burst, he’ll fucking unravel on the spot.

Steve’s face strains, looking like a goddamn work of art, and Bucky tightens around him again, tongue darting across his lips. The pressure of Steve’s hand at his throat is mounting, making black prickle at the edges of his vision and stoking a fire deep inside him. Steve drives into him with one last groan and holds him there.

The blackness edges closer as Steve’s heat fills him, as Bucky’s head swims with images: Steve’s perfect expression when he comes; the warmth of sunlight on their faces as they bask on Rockaway Beach; the cold bite of metal around his ankles and wrists; Steve’s slender hand tugging him from bed. He wants to come home to this, he never wants to go home.

And with a strangled cry, Bucky feels it all swelling inside him, and then the blackness wins out.

 

*

 

“Buck? _Bucky_.”

Bucky blinks, dizzy. He’s slumped against the bathroom wall, Steve crouched over him, dabbing a wet hunk of toilet paper against his cheek. Bucky lifts one eyebrow and looks up at him with a lazy grin. “Yeah, I’m—I’m here.”

“Jesus, Buck. You can’t _do_ that. I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was—”

“No, no—it’s what I wanted.” He pushes himself, wobbly, to his feet. His pants and underwear are still crumpled on the floor; Steve’s trousers are still bunched down at his knees. Bucky laughs, though the sound is raw. “Don’t think we’re gonna pass muster like this, pal.”

Steve smiles back at him, and, hand gently brushing against Bucky’s temple, kisses him again. It tastes like fuckin’ magic, Bucky thinks.

Someone pounds at the bathroom door. “Hey, hurry it up in there! I gotta take a piss!”

“Just a minute,” Steve shouts back, panic pinching his tone. “My, uh—my friend, he got sick!”

Bucky laughs as he struggles back into his clothes. He catches a glimpse of himself in the grimy bathroom mirror: hair sweaty and sticking every which way and the beginnings of bruises circling his throat. _Good_ , he thinks, and doesn’t care if it’s petty of him. He’ll own that bruise. He’ll wear it like a goddamned diamond necklace.

He catches Steve’s face in his hands and kisses him one last time, then slings his arm over Steve’s shoulder to play the drunk. He’ll take on any role he has to. Anything to buy them a few stolen moments.

He’d do anything for Steve.


	5. V

**V.**

The village appears before them like a mirage, if snow can make the same kind of illusion as sand. They’re crawling through mountains, out of radio contact, dropped miles and miles from anything safe, until suddenly it’s waiting for them, tucked like a secret into a small plateau. The whitewash farmhouses are practically glowing from the reflection of the snow, standing silently against the jagged Alpine backdrop. If Bucky squints, he can almost imagine candles lit in all the windows, lit up like a landing strip to guide them home.

“Jesus. It’s a goddamned Christmas miracle,” Dugan says. “Or New Year’s. Or whatever fucking day it is.”

“We already missed New Year’s,” Jones tells him. “Still need to celebrate.”

Morita charges forward first, plowing through waist-high snow toward the central village path. France, Switzerland, Austria, whatever fucking country this used to belong to, it’s Hydra territory now, unless the Commandos have anything to say about all that, which they fully intend to, very soon. But Steve and Jones hang back, and Steve’s got this haunted look in his eyes that gives Bucky pause.

“What’s the matter?” Bucky asks. “You got something against spending the night somewhere warm?”

“When I think about what’s happened to the people who used to live here?” Steve asks. “Yeah, it creeps me out a bit.”

Morita and Dernier holler to the group, waving from the entrance of the nearest cottage, which they’ve apparently found unlocked. Steve waves them off, half-salute and half-acknowledgment. He isn’t going to deny his men this joy, even if it bothers him personally.

“They’re probably all dead now,” Falsworth says. “Or in the camps. Or trapped in thankless trenches, much like our sorry arses were—”

“Well, whatever the cause,” Bucky says, “it seems a waste to just leave it here.”

Steve looks at Bucky sidelong, then looks back toward where Morita and Dernier are scouting out the other homes and other structures besides. “I guess it would be a waste. And if it’s only for one night . . .”

“Only for one night,” Bucky confirms. “And then we’re back on the trail.”

“Then I guess it doesn’t hurt anything. As long as we leave everything as we found it, more or less.”

“More or less,” Bucky says, but he’s already trudging forward through the snow.

Steve charges after him, as Falsworth splits off to join the other guys in their scouting. The snow gleams with starlight bright enough to illuminate the whole world, but Bucky’s so far past caring—he just takes Steve’s hand, leather sniper’s glove laced through leather motorcycle glove, and tugs him along the path. There’s a cottage down the road, not the prettiest or the biggest, but it’s got a white picket fence and a trellis of shriveled-up snow-crowned vines that probably sprout roses or something gorgeous in the spring, and as they pass through the trellis, Steve’s gawking at everything like he used to do when he was only five-foot and change and went to Coney Island just for the spectacle of it all.

“Look.” Bucky pointed toward the curved wooden door, half-obscured by snowy ivy and more shriveled vines. “It’s like your _Secret Garden_.”

Steve’s cheeks flush a pale pink, about as much color as he gets in this cold, and his fingers tighten around Bucky’s. “Should we see what lies behind the door?”

Bucky presses against it, and finds it unlocked. They stumble into the darkened kitchen, snow piled against the threshold, only the dance of moonlight through the snowy windows grazing against the outlines of the space. Steve pokes into the cupboards, their cabinet doors partly ajar. Bucky joins him, and, spying a cluster of candles, reaches over Steve’s shoulder to snatch them out with one hand as he uses the other to dig his lighter free.

“What’re you—” Steve starts to ask, but Bucky answers by pinning Steve’s body against the counter. Even through the thick padding of his patriotic uniform, Bucky can feel his heat. Steve turns to face him, hips digging into hips, and Steve’s gloved hand reaches up to stroke the soft patch where Bucky’s jaw melts into his neck.

“Shh.” Bucky kisses the side of Steve’s nose. “Questions later.”

Steve exhales and drapes his arms around Bucky’s shoulders. “We aren’t off duty just yet.”

“No?” Bucky nips at the apple of Steve’s cheek. “Maybe we should be.”

“Buck—”

“Maybe we should find ourselves a nice empty bed and I can suck you off.” Bucky sinks against the side of Steve’s face, laughing softly. He’s still drunk on the feel of Steve’s hand around his throat and the bruises that faded far too fast. The thought of having Steve again—in an actual bed, no less, a luxury they haven’t had in far too long—is almost painfully intoxicating.

Steve sucks his breath in through his teeth and closes his eyes. “Bucky, come on.”

“What’s the matter? We’re living a fucking fairytale, Steve.” Bucky looks him in the eye, silver light kissing the side of Steve’s face. “You got a fancy new power and you rescued me from the dragon and now we’ve found this magical town, all for ourselves.”

“Yeah, well, there’s no happily ever after just yet.”

Bucky’s arms go limp. No, he can’t disagree there. He’s nowhere near ready to consider the consequences of _after_. After the war, after death isn’t hanging over them like a goddamned raincloud just begging to soak them through. When this uneasy truce he’s brokered with Carter comes to a close. There’s no fairytale book version in which he lives happily ever after with Steve, and he knows it. The best he can hope for is to delay the pain until then.

 _Cap?_ The voice sounds so distant, it might as well be a ghost.

Steve pulls away and heads toward the doorway. “Over here,” Steve calls.

It’s Falsworth and Jones, striding toward them in the untouched snow. “Cap? I think we’ve found some suitable lodgings for the night.”

Bucky trots up after Steve to stand in the cottage doorway with him. “How big’s the one you found? This one ain’t big, but it’s in good shape.”

A look passes between Falsworth and Jones, lightning quick, so much that Bucky’s not even completely sure it happened at all. “Well, it’s not as if we all have to claim the same space.”

“That doesn’t sound very safe,” Steve says, his voice starchy. His commander voice.

“That’s why we’re here,” Jones says. “We thought maybe a perimeter check might be smart. Just to make sure we’re not missing anything obvious, you know, any signs that we might get some visitors. Then we can set up a watch rotation.”

Falsworth looks between Steve and Bucky. “Do you boys mind making a round?”

“Then I’ll take first watch when you’re back,” Jones adds.

Steve looks at Bucky, who holds up his hands. “Don’t look at me. You’re the captain.”

“Yeah, that sounds fine. Come on, Buck. Let’s scout.”

They trudge through the virgin snow along the edge between the village and the forest, ancient mountains looming over them. There’s no chance they’ll be able to hide their tracks, but it’s less about concealing that they’re here than catching anyone who might take notice. At first, they walk in silence, Steve holding the shield at the ready and Bucky with rifle in hand. But then Steve slots the shield onto his back and hangs back to walk at Bucky’s side.

Bucky looks at him from the corner of his eye. “Something’s bugging you.”

“Just thinking about what you said. That we’re living some kind of twisted fairytale.”

Steve’s expression is unreadable, his helmet masking the tension in his jaw. But Bucky’s feeling dangerous; he’s got hyperawareness humming in his blood and an ache in his stomach he can’t seem to fill. “You’ll get your happily ever after. Don’t worry about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“When the war ends. You’ll come home like a goddamn king.” Bucky drums his fingers against the muzzle of his gun. “Parades and your picture on the front cover of the newspaper. You’ll take your princess home and make some fucking gorgeous kids.”

Steve is quiet for a long moment. The bitterness that was in Bucky’s tone rings in his head, and he’s hoping maybe the subject can drop. But then Steve speaks, and his voice sounds watery. “Well, maybe that isn’t what I want.”

Bucky’s too tired to pin his hopes on those words anymore. He’s already exhausted himself with want. All that’s left for him is to cling to what he’s got this minute for as long as he can.

“What is it that you want, Steve?”

Steve swallows. “Well, for the longest time, I just wanted what we had. Our one-room all our own and okay jobs and each other, most of all. I never asked for that to end.”

Guilt sits in Bucky’s throat. But whether he’d broken Steve’s heart or not, it wasn’t his fault that war came.

“Now, I just don’t know. I like the way things are now.”

“Me too,” Bucky whispers.

Steve smiles sadly. “I’ve got a purpose—this is what I’ve been looking for my whole life, though I didn’t know it. I’ve got Peg, and I’ve got you still. But it’s hard to fully appreciate when I know any moment it can be ripped away.”

“It’s too fucking fragile for me to give a shit about what anyone else thinks,” Bucky says.

“Exactly. Although I’ve got other . . . expectations . . . placed on me. Out here, though, we’re safe.” Steve pauses, and looks up at the dead branches laced together over their heads. “As safe as we can be a hundred miles past the front.”

Bucky pauses then, staring down the village path. A lump rises in his throat at the sight awaiting them. “Uh. That wasn’t there when we left.”

Steve eyes the cluster of candles dotting the main path. All different shapes and sizes, in candlesticks or just wedged into the snow. The golden lights bob like fireflies as they curve around the path toward the cottages. It’s like a landing strip guiding them home; like the streetlights winking through the fog on a late Brooklyn night as they’d stumble from the social club hand in hand, a little bit drunk and a little bit dangerous and a whole lot in love and dying to put mouth to skin and heart to heart.

Bucky swipes at a touch of frost forming in the corner of his eye and realizes he’s choking back a tear.

“Steve—”

“What do you know,” Steve says, his voice sounding just as ragged as Bucky’s feels. “Maybe we’re in a goddamned fairytale after all.”

They follow the path around the bend, toward the trellis of the cottage where they’d been before. Steve goes first, pushing open the door again, checking his corners out of habit more than anything else, Bucky suspects. That’s certainly how Bucky takes it.

But then he sees the table set in the dining room, candles glowing there. Two plates, loaded with potted meat and cheese and pickled vegetables, undoubtedly from someone’s root cellar, and even an uncorked bottle of red wine. It ain’t a steak dinner, sure, but it’s a hell of a lot fancier than the C-rations they would’ve been eating otherwise tonight. Bucky’s heart is up in his throat now at the sight.

“Oh, Jesus,” Steve says, picking up the wine bottle. “We can’t eat this—this is someone’s home.”

But Bucky spots the note scrawled on a scrap of paper, tucked under the wine glass, and picks it up to read.

“‘Know we missed New Year’s celebrations owing to field work. Thought maybe you gents would like to make it up. We’ll be celebrating ourselves a few houses down if you need anything, though rather thinking you won’t. Don’t worry about watch rotation. We’ve got it squared.’”

Steve’s eyes lid, his skin warm and nearly translucent in the candlelight. “Oh, god,” he says. “You think they know—”

“Of course they fucking know. You aren’t exactly quiet, buddy, not matter how you try.” Bucky sets the note back down, then seizes Steve by the hips, pulling their bodies together. Kisses Steve’s cheek, right along the edge where his helmet meets soft skin. Kisses the other cheek. “But it isn’t like they care.”

Steve exhales and twists his head from Bucky. “But if they tell someone, or—or word gets out—”

“They’re our brothers. Thicker than blood.” Bucky smiles, but he’s choking up, overwhelmed with gratitude and relief and so much fucking love for the Commandos, and for his captain most of all. “I don’t exactly think they would’ve gone to all this trouble otherwise.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” Steve relaxes in his grip, and the way it shifts his hips against Bucky’s sends heat spiraling in Bucky’s gut. “And it’d be a shame to let all this go to waste.”

Bucky stifles a whimper and steps back from Steve with no small amount of regret. “Happy New Year’s, baby.”

Steve’s smile warms him more than any wine possibly could. “Happy New Year’s, Buck.”

 

*

 

They make it through half a bottle of wine and maybe two servings of preserved food before Steve’s foot catches Bucky’s leg beneath the table and trails up his calf, up his thigh.

Bucky groans, trying to suppress it, then wonders what the fuck is the point. They’re alone—well and truly alone, for the first time in their lives. No neighbors shoved up against whisper-thin walls. No soldiers just outside their tent, ears already on alert. None of the barracks, the crowded hallways, the patrons in the pub.

There is no outside world. Just their snowglobe, candle-lit, soft and pure.

“Tell me,” Bucky says softly, “what you want.”

Steve’s expression is serious; it shivers down Bucky’s spine with unspoken thrills. “I want you, Buck.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I want you to tell me _exactly_ what you want.” He swallows, his throat too thick and his heart too full. “Tell me exactly what you want me to do.”

Steve’s eyelids flutter. His foot caught between Bucky’s thigh flexes, like his muscles are coiling up. Already Bucky feels the blood rushing down from his brain, just dreaming about what Steve might say.

“I want your mouth around me,” Steve whispers.

Bucky cups one hand around his ear. “You’re gonna have to tell me louder than that.”

Steve laughs to himself. The sole of his boot tips against Bucky’s crotch, and Bucky shudders, feeling it scrape against his stirring cock. “I said I want your gorgeous mouth around me. Around—” Steve sucks in his breath. “Around my dick.”

“Mm. Now we’re getting somewhere.” Bucky closes his eyes; savors the feel of the slow circle Steve’s boot is drawing against his thigh. His hips thrust forward, instinctive. “And where do you want me to do this?”

Steve considers for a moment, then his face flushes and he bows his head. “I was thinking maybe . . . Well, maybe we could actually do it in a bed for once.”

“Us? A bed?” Bucky grins. “Stevie, baby, you’re filthy as fuck.”

“I know, it’s a little different, but I’m sure we can manage,” Steve says.

Bucky squeezes both his hands around Steve’s ankle and the motion stops. His cock is fucking throbbing now, and it’s all he can do not to think about the way Steve’s ass would grip it and wring him dry. Jesus. No, he wants to do this like Steve says, wants to make him feel so goddamned good he’ll never forget this night. It might be the only fairytale they get.

He shoves Steve’s leg out of his lap and stands, then beckons for Steve to follow.

The first-floor bedroom is barren, but the bed looks tidy enough, with a stack of blankets at its foot. Bucky reaches behind him for Steve’s hand and guides him to sit on the edge of the mattress. Drops to his knees.

“You’ve gotta let me hear you,” Bucky murmurs, nuzzling his cheek against the inside of Steve’s blue-clad thigh. “I want to hear how much you like it. I want you to tell me exactly what you want.”

Steve runs his gloved hands through Bucky’s hair and whimpers. “Hang on. Shouldn’t I get out of uniform first—”

“No,” Bucky says, harsher than he means to. “I mean—no. If I’m gonna suck off Captain America . . .” He smirks, looking up at Steve. “Then I’m gonna fucking suck off Captain America.”

Steve groans as Bucky unfastens the clasp on his utility belt and eases open the uniform’s fly.

The head of Steve’s cock is already shiny with pre-come, and Bucky can’t resist lapping the stickiness away. Steve whimpers, close-mouthed, and tightens his fists around Bucky’s hair.

“Louder,” Bucky says, circling the base of Steve’s erection with his fingers and thumb. “Please, baby, let me hear.”

“Let me feel that hot mouth of yours,” Steve says. Unsteadily, but the eagerness is certainly there. “Jesus, your mouth feels so good, and the way you rub your tongue back and forth . . .”

Bucky darts his tongue over the head of Steve’s cock, peering up at Steve through his dark lashes and a stray curl that’s fallen across his forehead. “Mm. You want something a little like this?”

He wraps his tongue around Steve’s shaft as he sinks his mouth around him and slides down to the base. Steve groans, full-throated now, the sound coming from deep within him, and it makes Bucky’s head spin. His own erection’s throbbing, every slight shift of his thighs and hips sending the rough rasp of fabric over it with torturous results.

But most of all, he’s drunk on the taste of Steve. He’s drunk on the way Steve’s hips curve to meet the thrust of his lips. He’s drunk on the way Steve’s veins start to throb as the pressure is rising, rising, and the way he’s letting loose, moaning with the sweetest music Bucky’s ever heard.

Steve curls one hand around the back of Bucky’s head, shoving him deeper onto him, and with the other hand, seizes a fistful of bedding. “Bucky . . . please, I want—”

Bucky slides his mouth off of Steve and releases his hand. “Fucking tell me.”

“I want to put you on your stomach and hear you scream.”

Bucky whispers a string of curses that curl his toes. But he barely has a moment to consider it. Steve shoves Bucky back from him, then yanks him up by the collar of his blue coat. Flings him onto the bed, with a force so good Bucky could swear he might lose it right then and there. And then Steve’s shoving down his pants, buttons tearing, and puts him on his elbows and knees as he splits him open, drives his spit-slicked cock into Bucky’s hole—

“Holy fuck,” Bucky cries, pain radiating through him as Steve forces deeper into him. He’s stretching and tearing, the friction like a goddamned wildfire, and he knows he’s going to be sore as hell tomorrow but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care.

This is all he wants. Steve’s brutal strength, pushing past the fire Bucky’s been feeling in his veins ever since the prison camp. He wants this forever, this dark fairytale healing him and making them whole. War or not, home or not, he just wants to shout Steve’s name like it’s a prayer and toe that glorious line between his want and his needs.

“Is this how you like me?” Steve growls, his dick pressing up against the spot deep inside him that turns him into mush. “Not holding back?”

Bucky’s whole body is pulsing. His muscles clench around Steve, the scrape of Steve inside him still fiery and raw, and his cock presses against the mattress. Steve’s on his knees, thrusting into him, each movement accompanied with a sweet groan that goes straight to Bucky’s head. The only fire he feels now is the one raging between their bodies. The only darkness is in Steve’s tone. The ridges of Steve’s uniform slam against the top of Bucky’s ass and the supple leather of Steve’s fingerless gloves kisses his skin.

“Fuck, yes,” Bucky moans. It feels so good—moaning out loud. He hasn’t shouted like this since the (don’t think about it, don’t think about the pain on that operating table)—since he doesn’t even know when. He slams his hips back against Steve’s, and they’re warring for rhythm, for control, both winning as black spots crowd Bucky’s vision and Steve’s cock thickens, close to the brink.

“Come for me, baby.” Steve slides one hand around Bucky’s waist and seizes his cock with a fearsome grip. “Let me hear you come.”

Bucky loses it. He’s spilling all over Steve’s hand, over the mattress, and his whole body feels unmoored, drifting away. Then Steve moves his spunk-smeared palm to wrap around Bucky’s throat, and it’s so fucking perfect that Bucky’s practically choking just from happiness, from post-coital haze—

“You like this, don’t you?” Steve bends over him to growl the words right into the shell of Bucky’s ear. “You like to feel how strong I am.”

“I like you fucking me senseless,” Bucky says. The words raspy as Steve’s hand squeezes tight.

And then Steve’s pumping into him, hot juices pouring into Bucky and pouring down his thighs. Both their uniforms are going to be goddamned messes, but Bucky forgets about it when he hears the perfect clenched-teeth groan that Steve makes when he comes. He isn’t hiding it. Isn’t smothering it with a pillow or Bucky’s hand. It’s the most beautiful sound in the world, and Bucky wants to hear it again and again and never hear anything else. Steve’s hand clenches at his windpipe, and while it doesn’t send him unconscious this time, it feels every bit as fucking incredible.

They collapse into the mattress, and Steve pulls Bucky into his arms, face to face, Bucky beneath him. “Jesus Christ, Stevie. I fucking love you so much.”

Steve opens his mouth to Bucky’s and answers him with his tongue, like he’s still hungry for more. Bucky presses his hands around Steve’s face, around the helmet he’s still wearing, and shudders with pleasure, not bothering to stay quiet.

“Happy New Year,” Steve says, then sinks forward, suddenly limp.

Steve’s out in no time at all, but Bucky curls against him anyway, feathering faint kisses against his cheeks. Tomorrow, it’s back to the war, it’s back to silence and stolen moments. Tomorrow, they’ve got a train to catch.

But tonight is everything he could ever ask for. Tonight, they have their fairytale ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2, a companion piece, coming soon. Thanks so much for reading, friends!
> 
> <3 [Bohemienne](http://starandshield.tumblr.com)


End file.
